UNEXPECTED FRIENDS & RELATIONS - BLOG TOUR WITH AUTHOR JAYNE BAMBER

 The Faults in Austen’s Stars: Flawed Heroines

By Jayne Bamber, author of the Friends & Relations Series

In all the facets of Jane Austen’s genius, perhaps the most delightful is the reality she imbues in all her characters. No one is quite perfect, making them all the more relatable. We can easily imagine ourselves as one or other of her heroines, not because they are as perfect as we might wish to be, but because they, like us, are not. Elizabeth Bennet, the paragon every Janeites wishes to be, is prejudiced and faulty in her judgement. Anne Eliot is too easily persuaded, and Fanny Price rather a bore and a prude. Each of the Dashwood sisters lacks one of the titular traits, while experiencing rather too much of the other, and Catherine Morland literally accuses her future father-in-law of murder (yikes.)

BLOG TOUR & GIVEAWAY - SHANNON WINSLOW ON PERSUASION BEHIND THE SCENES

Hello dear friends and welcome to our online book club. Today our guest is Shannon Winslow, who is one of the twelve authors of Austen-inspired fiction that collaborated in a unique, creative attempt to fill in "missing" scenes to Austen's classic work, Persuasion,  sure to delight any true fan. The result is Persuasion Behind the Scenes.   Enjoy Shannon's guest blog and take your chances to win in the giveaway contest you find below. 

BLOG TOUR: HAPPIER IN HER FRIENDS THAN RELATIONS. AUTHOR GUEST POST AND GIVEAWAY

Evil Jane!

By Jayne Bamber, Author of Happier in Her Friends Than Relations  

Giving you flowers or giving you the finger?

As a reader (okay, addict) of Austen fanfiction for over a decade I have, like many of you, consumed a lot of JAFF over the years, and have seen all sorts of wild liberties taken with the characters and storylines we love so dearly.

One of my favorite tropes in fanfiction is raising antagonists to Supervillain Status, and it’s been done with a lot of characters from Pride & Prejudice – Lady Catherine, Caroline Bingley, and George Wickham (the usual suspects) are often upgraded to evil masterminds with nefarious schemes against our dear Lizzy and Darcy. Even characters like Mr. Collins, Lydia Bennet, and Mrs. Bennet, who are more chaotic-neutral (or idiotic neutral?) than true evil, have taken their turn as villains, as have revered supporting characters like Mr. Bennet, Georgiana Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam. So why not the angelic Jane Bennet?

RATIONAL CREATURES BLOG TOUR: LAUNCH POST BY CHRISTINA MORLAND & SUPER GIVEAWAY

Thank you, Maria Grazia, for launching the tour of our book, Rational Creatures, at My Jane Austen Book Club. It’s a pleasure to be here with your readers and for me to have the opportunity to share my post about Miss Elinor Dashwood, one of Austen’s earliest heroines.

REGINA JEFFERS, MOURNING CUSTOMS IN REGENCY ENGLAND & WHERE THERE'S A FITZWILLIAM DARCY, THERE'S A WAY

The mourning rites we customarily think of as being so strict during the Regency era, were actually those imposed by Queen Victoria after the death of her husband, Prince Albert. Victoria was known to wear black for many years and strict forms of comportment during the mourning period. The Georgian Era/Regency held its moments, especially during the country's mourning for King George III and later, King George IV. But the mourning of individuals differed. 

CAROLYN MILLER, A SNAPSHOT OF ART IN REGENCY TIMES - GUEST POST & GIVEAWAY

Hello My Jane Austen Book Club readers, 

I’ve always enjoyed art, both the appreciation for the artist’s skill and patience involved, and as a form of creativity that (despite my poor attempts at painting) I find oddly soothing. Elinor Dashwood is one of Jane Austen’s heroines who is recognised for her artistic ability. Indeed, for young ladies of this time, skill with sketching or watercolours was considered an important accomplishment. For my latest inspirational Regency romance, Miss Serena’s Secret, I wanted to explore what it might be like for a young woman of artistic sensibilities in a time when young women were often seen as little more than a baby breeding machine.

CATHERINE BLOG TOUR - AUTHOR GUEST POST: TRANSITIONING FROM KITTY TO CATHERINE

I was asked about Kitty’s transformation in my latest release, CATHERINE: Pride & Prejudice continued… Book Two. At first, I was a bit flummoxed. You see, I never thought of my story in that manner. However, having mulled about this for a few days I came to the realization that this is exactly what I did.

Let me start in this manner. As I wrote the book I was very careful to portray Catherine’s POV (point of view) as being Kitty. When you think of Pride & Prejudice, this is how everyone saw her. Kitty Bennet who followed Lydia in all things. Kitty Bennet who was a silly girl. Kitty Bennet who coughed too much (thank you, Mrs. Bennet for that one). Her character was never fully developed and all we know from original canon ending that she became ‘less irritable, less ignorant, and less insipid’. Oh my.

VICTORIA GROSSACK, IN DEFENSE OF LADY CATHERINE

The older I get, the more I like Lady Catherine. This is partly because, as an ageing woman, I have more sympathy for other older women. Older women are often mocked in fiction: dismissed as silly, no longer beautiful, and frequently poor. Even Jane Austen was not beyond ridiculing them – think of Miss Bates and of Lady Bertram – but Austen also treated many with respect, even when her characters do not (Marianne Dashwood is extremely rude to Mrs. Jenkinson, and Emma is impatient with Miss Bates).

Lady Catherine may be proud, but that is something to be expected of a woman who is the daughter of an earl and the mistress of Rosings Park. And she has, in my opinion, many admirable character traits.

MARIA GRACE: PRIDE, PREJUDICE & BRITISH MYTHOLOGY + GIVEAWAY

Two of my favorite books as a child were a huge illustrated book of world mythology and an equally huge anthology of fairy tales. I read those stories over and over despite the fact that many of them were rather gruesome with less than happy endings. (Hmmm … That just might be the source of my penchant for happily-ever-afters in my own writing.) So it shouldn’t be surprising that fantastical creatures have always run rampant in my imagination.

THE LADIES OF ROSINGS BLOG TOUR - AUTHOR SHANNON WINSLOW'S MEETING WITH ONE OF THE LADIES

Several months ago, when author Shannon Winslow was still in the research phase of her just-released novel, she sat down with one of the principle subjects of her story. As it turned out, the lady was less that fully cooperative.

  

Winslow:  Thank you for meeting with me, Lady Catherine. As you know, I am writing a novel entitled The Ladies of Rosings Park, and so naturally I wanted to speak to you, among others – to get your opinions and some background information. You understand.

LC:  You are wise to come to me first, for I can save you a great deal of time. You shall find there is no need to speak to anybody else afterwards, because I can tell you what you need to know. I am very well informed.

Winslow:  I don’t doubt that for a minute.

LC:  Now, to begin with, I will set you straight about your title. What do you mean by ‘the ladies’ of Rosings Park, as if there were more than one? I am the mistress here. Certainly your title should more correctly be The Lady of Rosings Park or perhaps Portrait of an Illustrious Lady. That has a nice ring to it.

MONICA FAIRVIEW, MY TOP 3 PRIDE AND PREJUDICE MOVIE MOMENTS

It’s such a pleasure to appear once again on My Jane Austen Book Club. It’s very kind of you, Maria Grazia, to allow me to stop by on my Mysterious Mr. Darcy blog tour today, especially when I was held up by the flu and had to delay my visit.

Maria asked me if I could talk about my preferred scenes from Pride and Prejudice. I must admit I found it difficult to narrow them down – well, I love anything and everything to do with P&P! However, in the end, I realised I did have some particular ones I love to watch, so I have chosen three of them. Okay, they are not necessarily the top three, since obviously there are more major scenes like the proposals that are the top. However, these are the scenes that really linger in my mind, for better or for worse.

DANGEROUS TO KNOW BLOG TOUR - AMY D'ORAZIO, CAPTAIN TILNEY vs MR DARCY

Was Captain Tilney the Darcy of Northanger Abbey?

 Ok, stay with me here.

I was really excited to have the opportunity to write Captain’s Tilney’s story for my recent project with Christina Boyd’s Dangerousto Know: Jane Austen’s Rakes and Gentleman Rogues. He’s always intrigued me — strange, I know, but I guess I like a bad boy. Sure, I know his younger brother Henry is supposed to be the real hero of the story but if I’m being completely honest here, I would have to say that squeaky-clean Henry and sweet-but-silly Catherine don’t really fascinate me.

LONA MANNING & KYRA KRAMER: FANNY VS MARY - GUEST POST + GIVEAWAY

Hello, I'm Lona Manning, author of A Contrary Wind: a variation on Mansfield Park.  and author of true crime articles available at http://www.crimemagazine.com/category/authors/lona-manning.

And I'm Kyra Kramer, author of  Mansfield Parsonage and the nonfictional historical books, Blood Will Tell, The Jezebel Effect, Henry VIII’s Health in a Nutshell, and Edward VI in a Nutshell.

Lona: Please join us for the knock-down drag-out (maybe) Fanny versus Mary debate of the decade/epoch/millennium. We will take turns posing each other questions. Please feel free to join in, in the comments!

Kyra: Everyone who comments will be entered in a draw to win a gift pack of Austen goodies from Bath, England. 

VICTORIA GROSSACK, LIES & LIARS IN JANE AUSTEN

(by Victoria Grossack)

 In Jane Austen’s works, the bad guys lie.  A lot.

In fact, dishonesty in both word and deed frequently propels the plot.  Let’s take a tour through the deceptions in Jane Austen’s six novels and then discuss her depictions of lies, liars, and those who believe them.

Northanger Abbey.  One of the things I like about this novel is that much of the plot turns on the lies that characters tell about each other.  Most are delivered by John Thorpe, who tells many lies to General Tilney about Catherine Morland, the novel’s protagonist.  Northanger Abbey is, as many people know, Austen’s riposte to the over-the-top melodrama of the gothic novels that were so popular in the late 1700s.  And although Austen incorporated some gothic imaginings, she was able to devise a lovely little novel with prosaic lies.

CATHERINE LODGE, THE PERILS OF PERFIDIOUS PLAGIARISTS

In August 2015, I was preparing to enjoy my birthday party at a sister's house, my family was around me, a small nephew was instructing me on the correct way to build with lego,  and the cake was flowing. I made the mistake of looking at my email.

"Hi," said and eagle-eyed reader who'd seen my novels on the Meryton.com site. "I didn't know you'd published your stories."

Celebration ground to a halt, I rampaged around Amazon - horrified to see that someone had smooshed my two stories together, under a hideous cover, with an ungrammatical title and using the pen name I'd used on-line.  Horribly, this meant it was someone who'd read my stories in a closed group I'd thought was a safe space, perhaps even someone I'd interacted with socially. 

It took me two days to get Amazon to admit that the stories were mine and take them down, followed by Nook and Barnes and Noble.  "Phew," thought painfully naive me. "Thank heavens that's over."  Of course, I never saw a penny/cent/pesos of what the plagiarist had made but I consoled myself that they probably didn't either and that it had all disappeared into Amazon's coffers.

THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF YOUNG LADIES IN JANE AUSTEN'S NOVELS + GIVEAWAY

(from guest blogger Eliza Shearer)

Several words pop up all the time in Jane Austen’s novels: ‘fine,' ‘nice,' ‘civil,' ‘pleasant’ and ‘elegant’ immediately come to mind. But my personal favourite is ‘accomplished,' a word that comes up over and over again, particularly when referring to young ladies.

While in the XVIII century the education of young women of genteel families left a lot to be desired, in the Regency there was a renewed interest in cultivating the mind and spirit of girls. For girls, being accomplished became a positive trait, and one that could lead to a good marriage. Jane Austen herself benefited from an open-minded approach to female education, and her father’s extensive and fascinating library was as open as Mr Bennet’s.

JANE AUSTEN AND THE MEN WHO LOVED HER

(by Alice Chandler)

Why do so few men read Jane Austen? That question has been getting a lot of attention recently. In an article reprinted in the blog Jane Austen’s World, William Deresiewicz writes about “the strangeness, the effrontery, of a heterosexual man who reads Jane Austen.” Another article by Margaret Barthels, talks movingly about her father, who was a lifelong Austen reader, even in a world of “female-dominated fandom.”  A 2008 survey readership found that 96% of all Austen readers were women. Even allowing for the distortions of such self-reported data, the evidence is clear. Women read Jane Austen. Men do not--or to be more accurate, most men do not. It was not always so.

SHARON LATHAN, THREE WAYS TO WED DURING THE REGENCY - GUEST BLOG & GIVEAWAY

My sincerest thanks to Maria Grazia for hosting me on My Jane Austen Book Club today. It is an honor to be here, and a great pleasure to share a bit of my research with your readers, as well as my latest novel. Darcy and Elizabeth: Hope of the Future is the second book in the two-volume Darcy Saga Prequel Duo, which began with Darcy and Elizabeth: A Season of Courtship. These two novels perfectly fit with my Darcy Saga Sequel to Pride and Prejudice, the series now including nine lengthy novels and one novella.

Three Ways to Wed during the Regency

Today I thought I would talk about the legitimate avenues for a legal marriage in England during the period our beloved characters lived. As a result of the Hardwicke Marriage Act of 1753, the rules and requirements were strictly detailed, in large part to prevent the rash marriages of the prior decades. 

The five major points of the 1753 Marriage Act were:

      1.  A license and/or the reading of the banns were required to legally marry.

2. Essential parental consent if either person was under the age of 21.
3. The ceremony must take place in a public chapel or church where at least one of the two resided AND by an authorized Church of England clergyman.
4. The marriage must be performed between 8am and noon, AND before designated witnesses.
5. The marriage had to be recorded in the marriage register with the signatures of both parties, the witnesses, and the minister.

DANGEROUS TO KNOW: JANE AUSTEN'S RAKES AND GENTLEMEN ROGUES. CHRISTINA BOYD PRESENTS HER NEW PROJECT.

Oops, I’m at it again.

I’m Christina Boyd, the editor of The Darcy Monologues, and I am thrilled to finally announce that my next anthology project, Dangerous to Know: Jane Austen’s Rakes and Gentlemen Rogues, is well underway. My team and I thank you for helping us launch the news to the Jane Austen community.

Jane Austen’s masterpieces are littered with any number of unsuitable gentlemen—Willoughby, Wickham, Churchill, Crawford, Tilney, Elliot—adding color and depth to her plots but often barely sketched out to the reader. Have you never wondered about the back story of her rakes and gentlemen rogues? Surely, there's more than one side to their stories.

AUTHOR MARIA GRACE, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN JANE AUSTEN - A LESS AGREEABLE MAN BLOG TOUR

Jane Austen portrays a wonderful vision of heroines like Elizabeth Bennet who are hardly doormats to their men. It is important to realize though, that our modern views of marriage did not apply to Jane Austen’s day, and expectations (and realities) of marriage were very different for women then. These differences applied to many areas of life. One of particular notes was the tolerance for domestic violence.

Warm and affectionate marriages were desirable, but practical considerations were probably the backbone of most matches. Loving relationships were more likely to form after marriage than before, if they formed at all. Whatever amiable feelings might develop did so in the context of a clear hierarchy. In regency society, no one doubted that the husband was the head of the relationship, in charge of essentially everything.

There cannot, indeed, be a sight more uncouth, than that of a man and his wife struggling for power: for where it ought to be vested, nature, reason, and Scripture, concur to declare;

… How preposterous is it to hear a woman say, ' It shall be done!' —' I will have it so!' and often extending her authority not only beyond her jurisdiction, but in matters where he alone is competent to act, or even to judge. (Taylor, 1822)